


Battle Fatigue

by starsoverhead



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Vague Shipping, Vomiting, depictions of violence (non-graphic), emotional breakdown, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsoverhead/pseuds/starsoverhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his first life, Bucky Barnes had to adjust to what Steve had become.  In his second, he has to adjust to what he's become.</p><p>Most of the tags above can be considered mild or vague, but I prefer to tag for them anyway.  There are hints at Steve/Bucky shipping, but they're pretty ignorable if you don't ship that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He'd swatted Steve on the back of the head when he heard he'd jumped on a grenade, even though the grenade had been a fake. He'd rolled his eyes, chewed him out a little, and had turned it into a joke.

He'd drank the glass of beer he'd had in hand when he'd heard. His next drink had been whiskey, and then he'd made his excuses, something about seeing a skirt that wasn't Miss Carter (or Agent Carter, or Peggy, or whatever Steve had called her, he had no right hating her but damn if he didn't want to snarl at the woman) to go chase, and Steve...

Steve had let him go.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected. Something, maybe. Something, instead of nothing. Steve had seen through him before, seen through his halfass excuses, even if he'd always managed to argue him down (only person who could do that before but now he was pretty sure that wasn't his title anymore since Peggy Carter was on the scene), but Steve had just let him go.

From where he was standing, between two buildings that had probably been better off before everything went to war and hell, the alcohol wasn't nearly as good coming back up as it was going down. Couple beers, a whiskey, no food on his stomach to cushion it, and that was part of the problem. The rest of it was this nervous energy, or he'd call it nervous energy for lack of anything else to call it. He felt like he was shaking, shivering, ready to rabbit or to beat his way out of something, maybe one of those barroom scraps he and Steve used to get into (or that Steve would start, that was more honest than just saying they happened wherever Steve was, no, Steve started those fights with his smart mouth) would be just the thing to bring him back to normal. But how was he going to start a fight in a bar full of guys he was going to be fighting alongside?

So that left him walking, skin feeling hot even though the night was cold, clothes rumpled, hair combed but nowhere near in order. Months ago, he'd sooner be shot than be seen looking like this. He had an image to keep up, people to win over, and you couldn't do that if you didn't dress worth a damn, and now he looked like exactly what he was: a soldier through the wringer backward who'd left a day's drinking back in an alley. Who was wondering why the hell he'd got into this damn war.

Steve had fought tooth and nail to get in, but he'd been rejected. And rejected. And rejected. He'd broke the damn law who knew how many times just to get rejected again. When his own draft letter had come, he knew he couldn't get out of it, so he'd set things up instead. Like he'd always done. The Army would pay him, so the apartment was paid for. Food was probably paid for. Steve's work, whatever he could find, would pay for his classes and anything else. And he'd made sure to sign papers saying that if he died, his death benefit went to Steve, and Steve would be provided for.

His entire reason for not dodging the draft was so he could make sure Steve was provided for. So what did Steve do once he was gone but get himself into the goddamned military, throw himself on a goddamned grenade, get himself goddamned experimented on, get himself a goddamned Brit girlfriend (who looked at him like he was scum, which he was, but she didn't have to make it so obvious in the way she wouldn't even lower herself to look at him like he was human, but what did it matter when there was Steve to look at, right), walk right into goddamned enemy territory--

Was that what happened when he was away from Steve? Did he intentionally start trying to kill himself, or was it just a side effect of being headstrong and too stupid to walk away from a fight?

Why couldn't Steve have just left well enough alone, let him get killed, and find a good life back in Brooklyn? Why'd he have to go and prove what he'd known all along - that Steve was the good one, the worthwhile one, while he, himself, was the gutter rat not worth Steve's time? Now Steve was goddamned Captain America, and he... 

He was the even smaller footnote to a good man's life.

He'd ended up in another alley, thankfully with nothing left in his stomach to cough up. Shivering, hugging his own knees, his mind full of images of a little piggish face looking at him with glee, Steve almost dying, the pain of needles in his skin, something searing through his veins, his best friend barely recognisable, yanking him out of there, not even letting him die while he thought he was doing something good--

The bricks behind his head hurt in a good way as he knocked his head back against them, trying to jar the images loose, trying to jar the feelings out, trying to give himself a physical reason to cry instead of the nightmare memories and anger that welled up as tears and burned their way down his face.

He hated this war. He hated anything that made him want to punch the person he'd built his life around, but there wasn't time to let himself fall apart the way everything in his head wanted him to. He'd sucked it up before, pulled on that cocky smile like a disguise when Steve came home bruised cheeks and chin. Time to do it again. To be the smooth New York charmer he'd always shown. Maybe Steve would at least make them write something nice on his tombstone. 'Course he would. He was Steve.

\----

That was his face. With less hair altogether, it was his face on the glass wall, looking like it had been clipped from newsprint and pasted in place.

Childhood friend, the text said. The Soldier wondered. If they were friends, why were the fragments of memory he did have so disjointed. He felt guilt surrounding Captain America. Steve Rogers. He felt anger. He ached, but there was nothing he thought he could call friendship.

Excellent athlete. Excelled in the classroom. Invaluable marksmanship. Those, he believed, even if he wasn't sure how smart he was now. Years of electric shock probably took its toll, but he was smart enough to know that this wasn't the place to learn about the person he used to be. Just the few paragraphs on a glass wall felt like they either left out too much or were full of lies.

He pulled down his hat, pulled up his collar, pushed back the incoherent memory that had hit hard when he'd entered the exhibit, and left. He felt full of nervous energy, his insides seeming like they were swimming through him, leaving him nauseous with no alcohol to throw up. He'd find a place with some books. Or look into the internet. He was remembering how to do that. Maybe somewhere would have the truth and not government-sanctioned, museum-displayed propaganda.

The truth about why he wanted to punch Steve Rogers in the face and apologise right after, about why Steve made him so angry and so helpless at the same time. And maybe while he was looking for that truth, he'd find a few fights to get into and use some of that tension that had him tied up inside. Had to be better than ending up being found right under Steve's nose (because then Steve would give him that unfair look with his big, blue, puppydog eyes and that turn of lip that always made him look pathetic and did funny things to his heart, had him wrapped around his finger and he hated it, gave him a five-foot-nothing weak spot) while he was healing up.

The metal detector went off. Stupid arm. He punched the guard and ran, disappearing before any kind of law enforcement could arrive. But Steve would find him eventually. 'Course he would. He was Steve.


	2. Chapter 2

He was smoking.

Cigarettes were a luxury, but he was smoking. God knew he could use it. And weird enough, cigarettes were easier to get hold of in the Army than they had been in Brooklyn. Seemed like Kentucky tobacco grew on European trees.

Half an hour ago (maybe, hell if he knew, time had passed and he wasn't willing to look at a clock), he'd heard footsteps coming behind him. Didn't take a genius to know who it was, and it'd just been confirmed when he'd said, "Go away, Steve." The footsteps had receded and he still wasn't sure if he was glad he'd been listened to or if he'd wished Steve had protested.

He'd spent a while laying in hospital tents, being poked and prodded in ways that left him cagey, wondering if his allies were going to do the same thing to him as his enemies. His arms were made of bruises. His hands shook when he wasn't taking a drag off his smoke. He was sore from the inside out and imagining that damned kicked-puppy look on Steve's face when he'd told him to leave didn't help.

But it didn't matter. It didn't matter because when he closed his eyes, he didn't see darkness. He saw Steve jumping on a grenade. He saw a man peeling off his face. He saw metal _things_ that he didn't even have words for. He saw his best friend turned into some sort of caricature of a real person.

It was possible, he knew, that he could get a trip home. It was possible he could get sent home, never have to worry about war again. Just get a factory job, support the effort to kick Hitler's ass from the homefront. And hell if it wasn't tempting. Tempting to walk away from the place that had turned him into someone he didn't recognise.

And then he remembered that the first time he'd been really away from Steve since they both were in the single digits, the little bastard got himself enlisted and jumped on a grenade and was experimented on and stuffed into tights and then walked into enemy goddamned territory. If he didn't stay over here, who knew what the hell Steve would do.

He flicked the butt of the cigarette to the dirt, ground it out under his boot, and wished for a bottle of whiskey and another smoke.

"Buck?"

Goddamn it, Steve.

"Buck... you mad at me?"

He didn't turn around. "Not talkin' about this, Steve."

"Not talking about this? Not talking about my best friend not talking to me?"

"Yep."

"Not talking about you telling me to go away?"

"Yep."

"Not talking about you not even looking at me?"

"Seems like you got a handle on it."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to break my damn hand on your jaw. Hand's where my trigger finger happens to be. So do us both a favour and go the hell away, like I told you."

There was silence for a few heartbeats. Silence. No footsteps. No rustle of fabric. No raspy breathing like there should be, no rattle in his throat like there'd always been, no coughing, no sniffle, no clearing his throat. Silence.

He hated silence.

"You're gonna have to tell me eventually, Buck."

"Eventually ain't now, Steve."

\----

A couple of nuns had given him a bag. Not a really useful bag, not a duffel or backpack but one of those plastic Thank You bags he saw in convenience stores everywhere, cheap and flimsy, but it was full of stuff that actually was useful. It'd been given to him by nuns he'd not realised were nuns until they introduced themselves as Poor Sisters of Jesus Crucified and the Sorrowful Mother. How did they remember that name. How did he remember that name. Part of him had even remembered part of a prayer, but he got as far as _May Christ shield me today_ before he started thinking about red, white, and blue and made himself think about other things instead.

Like the bag that was full of things he hadn't thought of when he'd left DC. He was running too fast to plan when he'd left DC. He'd just been running. Now, he was in a truckstop shower - expensive, but private - and the bag the nuns had given him was proving miraculous.

Soaps. More kinds of soaps than he would've thought existed before looking into that bag. Bar soap, body wash, shampoo, toothpaste, shaving foam. Deodorant, lotion, washcloths, razors, combs, a tiny set of nail clippers, and a Bible. He was pretty sure the Bible was there to help get his soul as neat and clean as the soaps would do his body, but the idea made him snort. He was way past where a Bible could help. He couldn't remember everything, but he knew better than to think a few Hail Marys would do anything.

But soap would. He washed, careful of the skin around his arm, careful of those moving plates catching hair and skin, washing his hair one-handed for the same reason. When he got done, he was clean from the skin out. His new clothes were cheap but hid what needed hiding. His hair looked like hair instead of straw, held back in an elastic band. And now, when he asked, a guy standing outside the building gave him a cigarette. Loaned him a lighter before he started walking again. The smoke tasted different but familiar enough that, for a little while, he felt human again. Might help him get his feet under him before he had to face the guy that was the focus of a good seventy or eighty percent of his sparse memories. Because Steve would come. The one thing the kid never knew how to do was quit.


	3. Chapter 3

At least when he was sitting down, Steve was almost the right height. And at least his hand had mostly stopped shaking when he smoked. That meant it was easier to have him there while he was smoking, holding the smoke in until he couldn't anymore and letting it go in ribbons that added to the fog that had settled over the base.

"I thought you were gonna talk, Buck."

"Serum didn't give you any more patience, did it," he answered, half joke and half... Half something he wasn't sure of. He always felt so bitter now. It was just as easy to snap at someone as it was to talk. Smiling was fake and he hated doing it. There wasn't enough alcohol to get him to sleep without nightmares, but he'd yet to wake up screaming. Small favours.

"Yeah, guess I'm not perfect, after all."

Steve's voice was thick with resentment, and even with all his bitterness, he had to admit that was fair. He still had problems looking at him. Talking to him. Being anywhere around him. And before the damn war, they'd been inseparable. Those memories were the closest thing he had to something that made him happy. Hand cupping the cigarette, he took another deep drag and sighed it out. "Could'a fooled me. Everybody looks at you now like the sun shines out your ass."

"And what - you only wanna be around me if you're the only one who looks at me twice?" he bit back, glaring at him. Even without looking over, he could see the anger in Steve's eyes and didn't blame him. He was looking like a greedy ass, and maybe he really was, but hell if that stopped him.

"I wanna be around my best friend, and last I saw, he was back in Brooklyn, frustrated but _safe_. Not getting himself shot up with who knows what, not walking into enemy territory like an idiot. Not acting like he's self-destructing because I wasn't around or who knows what fucking reason," he rattled off, words reminding him of the unsettling ack-ack of a machine gun. "I had everything set up for you. There was a savings account. You were my beneficiary for when I died. You were gonna be able to finish art school and buy a damn house somewhere where the air was clean. Instead, I find you in a fucking enemy installation, too damn tall and wide, and three times as stupid as you ever were--"

His cigarette was gone and he didn't know where. His throat was tight and he was realising too late that he'd turned, was glaring into Steve's eyes, had a hand at his throat and Steve looked scared and a voice in his mind that he didn't like was whispering, _Good, he should be._

He made himself let go. Shove back. Stand up. Walk enough steps away that he felt cold air around him instead of the warmth that surrounded Steve now. He'd always been slightly cool before, had needed to borrow heat instead of giving it off, and it just felt wrong. He rubbed his own arms, squeezed his shoulder. If he bruised himself, it was better.

"Goddamn it, if you _had_ to get into the Army, why couldn't you have settled for the clerk pool or Special Services; they put on shows all the damn time, would've needed someone like you to do sets or something, but no, first thing I hear about is you throwing yourself on a goddamned grenade - and what, was I supposed to get that letter while I was out here fighting? Dear Sergeant Barnes, we regret to inform you that your dumbass friend pulled a dumbass stunt while in the basic training he should never have gotten into and jumped on a live grenade?"

"It wasn't a live grenade--"

" _You didn't know that!_ "

When had his face gotten wet? Why was Steve looking at him like he wasn't sure what he was seeing? That was his expression, damn it. He was the one whose friend had changed without a moment's thought about what it would do to the one friendship he had in the world--

Fuck. He was a jerk. The world spun under his feet and he didn't have anything to grab on to before he was on his knees, clutching his own elbows, fingernails pressing into his skin and hell he hoped he bled. Maybe if he bled, all of this aching and hate and anger and bitterness would come out with it because that's what they did in medieval times, right? They bled you to balance your humours? Bucky would kill a hundred men for a feeling of balance again.

There were arms around him and he knew. He'd broken. Shattered. The moment his CO found out, he was going to be on a boat back home, right when he was coming to terms with the knowledge that, even when he didn't like Steve, he had to be there to keep Steve from breaking the same way he had. It only took three words from Steve - "I'm sorry, Buck." - and a sound escaped from him that he was so ashamed of.

Next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to see a tin roof. The cot underneath him was reassuring, inasmuch as it was a normal Army cot. He sat up, took a breath, and there he was. Next cot over. Already up. Uniformed and waiting. And when he saw him, he smiled. Tentative. Still a smile, though. And he nodded a little bit. Pulled on that old veneer and felt it settle over him a little more comfortably. No matter what had happened, he couldn't quit. "The hell were you thinking, Stevie," he said with cheer that didn't feel quite as false. "Letting me sleep so late. I'll miss breakfast."

\----

The first sign that Steve had found him was, at best, confusing. There was a bear sitting at the doorstep of the motel room he'd been renting. Brown, stuffed, about a foot tall, wearing a blue jacket, red cuffs, and a black mask. If he hadn't made that trip to the Smithsonian, he wouldn't have understood just what it was supposed to be. It was the only sign he'd gotten for... weeks? Months? Time had started to run together. He'd given himself a random amount of time in each town, only making sure to be gone before either Steve or Hydra could find him again. The idea of fighting put a bad taste in his mouth.

He'd spent a lot of time thinking and reading. Biographies told him why so many of the memories he'd managed to uncover revolved around Steve Rogers. Leaked Hydra files told him why those memories were so few and far between. And when he found the bear, he knew his time to think and read was done. That... was okay.

He placed it on the window sill, facing inward, and set to work cooking on the two-burner range. The motel called this room an 'efficiency'. Charged a higher price for it, too, but he had less than no qualms about using the Hydra funds cached in secret locations to pay his bills. He figured they owed him.

When he went to sleep, it was with the silhouette of the bear in his mind. When he woke up, it was to similar, for all he was clutching a pillow instead of laying on it, the sky outside shades of yellow instead of purple, and when he went out, he kept an eye out for red, white, and blue.

It was more difficult to eat, thinking Steve was watching him. More difficult to think. So many of his memories, the strongest ones, wrapped around pain and anger, making that sharpest memory all the more sickening. The helicarrier, striking Steve's head over and over again with a fist that didn't even feel pain. He'd had flashes, then, of injuries to Steve's face. Cuts on his cheeks, bruises that spread across his face, along his sides. Loose teeth, broken bones. The worry that had coiled around his heart when he'd seen all of those wounds, and then the horror that he'd been the one to do it this time.

Steve Rogers was a big, confusing mess that tangled up everything in his mind and everything in his life. On the other hand, he was also a bright spot in enough memories that he was impossible to ignore. Didn't want to ignore him. He had enough pain. He could use a bright spot.

That night's gift was a pack of Winstons and a nice lighter. The next, an entire display box of Cadbury Dairy Milk bars (which he had to try before he understood that, compared to the waxy bullshit they called Hershey's now, they were amazing). It set a precedent Steve followed: one gift a day. On the fourth day came a coat that fit him better than the one he'd managed to get from the secondhand store. On the fifth, a tall container of pink lemonade mix. And on the sixth, a tub of Turtle Wax.

Very fucking funny, Steve. He took it anyway.

On the seventh, he found a book, a little yellow note stuck on the front with handwriting - Steve's handwriting, old memories whispered - saying, "This one's the most accurate." He turned it in his hands, looked at the spine. _Defying the Odds: The History of the Howling Commandos_. Another little strip of yellow sticking out on top declared, "This chapter's about you." It was one he hadn't read yet.

He didn't eat that night. He only read, turning pages, connecting words to memories, finding parts that didn't feel right, even managing to crack a smile sometimes. The world outside his room was dark by the time he reached the end, pages leafing through his fingers until he was left holding only the cover.

Left staring at the flyleaf, where colour had caught his eye and kept him staring. None of his memories had shown him Steve drawing in more than black and white. It had always been pencils or ink, shades of grey. Monochrome. But there was a portrait of him (Or was it Bucky? Now he wasn't sure.) there, in vivid colour. Stylistic colour in broad strokes, giving him the feeling of... emotion. Memory. The portrait wasn't one that had been studied and done while he wasn't looking. This was one that was more the idea of the person than the person and... It helped. Enough that he fell asleep sitting up, leaning against the headboard, the book still open in his lap.

The sun came up. He went through his morning routine, almost sure of what he'd find outside. And when he finally opened his door, he wasn't surprised.

He was still too tall. Too big. But his posture was right, how his hands were in his pockets, shoulders slumped. The way his eyes held all of his uncertainty. "Hi," Steve said, his voice almost breaking on the word.

"Captain," he answered, his voice rough more from disuse than emotion.

Steve's eyes searched his face, an expression there that was hoping against hope, and, seeing that, there was only one thing he could do. He swallowed and corrected, "Steve."

The smile he got in return rivaled the sunrise.


End file.
